Well, I’m not.

The 7 Stages Shakespeare Company in Portsmouth, NH are the geniuses behind ShakesBEERience. Who can say no to free Shakespeare presented at a brewery?

They’re doing Love’s Labour’s Lost in May, but Pericles and Two Noble Kinsmen are in their fall lineup so it’s not like they’re phoning it in by doing the easy/popular ones, either!

Has anybody been? Last time I ran across their link they were off season and I forgot all about it. I think I’m only about 45 minutes away, I’ve got to figure out a way to get up there and see the show.

My friend Keri and her Rebels have done so much for Shakespeare that when she asks me to help spread the word about what her alumni are up to, I’m only happy to oblige!

He [Matteo Pangallo] is a professor out there, but had his start at rebel and is a great guy. He is running the first Shakespeare program for high schoolers at UMass this summer…. he’s a fantastic guy, a Shakespeare expert and someone you’d really enjoy, if you don’t already know him. … Participants live on campus for 2 weeks and get college credit.

Here’s more details, directly from the Professor, courtesy his Facebook page. Sounds like a great opportunity!

The deadline approaches to enroll in the summer “pre-college” course Performing Shakespeare that I’ll be teaching at UMass Amherst’s Commonwealth Honors College from July 26-August 8. There are still eight spots open if you know of any high school students who would be interested in a fun and engaging theatrical approach to mastering Shakespeare’s plays.

Tuition covers room and board (students from anywhere in the country or the world are welcome!), organized social activities with the students in all of the CHC’s pre-college courses, and, of course, the class itself. As with all the pre-college courses, this class does provide college credit, if students are interested in getting a jump on progress toward their undergraduate degree!

Information about the course, CHC’s pre-college program, and enrollment can be found at http://www.umass.edu/summer/precollege.html. I’d also be happy to answer any questions interested students might have (they can reach me at pangallo@gmail.com).

I almost missed Shakespeare Day this year.  When I heard the news, I immediately sent a curse-filled rant to my closest Shakespeare friend, one Bardfilm by name, because I knew he would understand.  Again, Bardfilm, I apologize for using so many F-words on Easter Sunday. 🙂

Here’s what I realized, when I almost lost my day.  Today might very well be the happiest day of the year for me.  I’m not counting anniversaries and children’s birthdays and such, those are happy on a whole different level.  But they are small.  How many people will celebrate my son’s birthday with me?  His friends, sure, and his parents, and various grandparents and cousins. But still, we’re talking about a couple of dozen people?  Who are there for my son.  It’s not really my day. I’m happy for *him*, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Shakespeare Day is the one day of the year when I feel a kindred spirit with literally thousands (millions?) of like-minded people all around the world. It is a day where I can tell, hear and repeat Shakespeare jokes with people who actually get them. No, not who just get them – anybody with a high school English education can “get” them. I’m talking about all you good folks out there who, like me, are made fundamentally happier because we get to do this. And we get to do this all day long.

My wife doesn’t fully get my Shakespeare addiction, but she tries. She’s learned over the years that on April 23, my thoughts are in another place. When I am not writing about Shakespeare I’ll want to be reading about him, and when I’m doing neither I’ll be thinking about him. She tries, and my kids try (my daughter suggested that I “paint my face and shave my head like Shakespeare”), but they know that these things work at a much bigger and deeper level than that.

Most of today’s posts, including this one, have been written ahead of time and scheduled, because I will be wrapped up with the day job responsibilities. But I’ll be with you in spirit!  Thanks for sharing the day with me over the years. There’s nothing else quite like it.

The contribution that famously carries his name, however, is The Turing Test (which he originally called the imitation game, hence the movie title). In the game he proposes, a human witness would ask questions, through a computer terminal, to a human player and to an “intelligent” computer player. The witness must determine which is the computer. The computer is trying to convince the witness that it is human. Being Turing, he even put numbers on the probability of winning the test,
writing that “an average interrogator will not have more than 70 per cent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning.”  

Ever since, people have been making “chat bots” that are good at changing the topic and avoiding the question. Apparently nobody else reads the rest of Turing’s paper, because he gave a great example about the kind of conversation he expected the computer to have:

Interrogator In the first line of your sonnet which reads ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’, would not ‘a spring day’ do as well or better? 

Computer It wouldn’t scan. 

Interrogator How about ‘a winter’s day’? That would scan all right. 

Computer Yes, but nobody wants to be compared to a winter’s day. 

Interrogator Would you say Mr. Pickwick reminded you of Christmas? 

Computer In a way. 

Interrogator Yet Christmas is a winter’s day, and I do not think Mr Pickwick would mind the comparison 

Computer I don’t think you’re serious. By a winter’s day one means a typical winter’s day, rather than a special one like Christmas. 

 I love when the computer science people use Shakespeare as their test content. Makes my day. I do the same thing :).  Consider how much intelligence is in this small example, beyond the ability to form grammatically correct sentences.  It needs to understand what sonnet 18 is, first of all, and what it means to compare someone to a summer’s day. It needs to understand the relationship between spring and summer, as well as the purpose of meter in poetry. It needs to understand why you compare someone to a summer’s day but not a winter’s day. It needs to recognize who Mr. Pickwick is, and why you might associate him with Christmas. It needs to understand what Christmas is, and why it is a special day.

In June 2014 there was a big story in the computer science world that a bot has “passed” the Turing Test.  Here’s a transcript.  You be the judge.  Personally I think we’re still a long way away – but imagine how exciting it would be if we ever get there!